Former Syracuse field hockey goalie Lucy Camlin explains reason for leaving team

Lucy Camlin’s “sole reason” for leaving Syracuse was the coaching style at SU, she said in a statement to The Daily Orange.

After spending three months on the No. 2 Orange’s (13-2, 4-2 Atlantic Coast) roster and starting just one game for the Orange, the goalie chose to leave the team during the week of Sept. 12.

She is now back in Scotland training with the Scottish national team and her former Division I club.

“The general training approach taken to my sport was vastly different to that which I am used to,” Camlin said in an email, “and I personally believe it was not beneficial to individual development or team cohesion.”

Camlin did not elaborate further into what was different about the training approach, but she said there was “no room for compromise or acknowledgment of the experience and maturity” that she brought from her time as a player on the Scottish national team.

According to Camlin, the coaching staff did not allow her to meet with the team as a whole before her departure, a decision that she called “unreasonable.”

Camlin also stated that she “fully engaged in all that was asked of me, both with fitness requirements and preseason training” and decided to leave the program when she determined that her “main reason for accepting the place at SU, to play hockey, was not going to be realized.”

The Orange coaching staff initially declined to comment on Camlin’s departure from the team but SU head coach Ange Bradley recently released a statement regarding Camlin’s departure.

“We pride ourselves as a program on maintaining a high performance environment at Syracuse,” Bradley said in the statement. “This philosophy has allowed student-athletes great success in the classroom, on the field and in life. Lucy chose to leave our team and we wish her the best.”

Bradley said throughout the preseason that the starting goalie position was wide open between Camlin and current starter Regan Spencer, with the two splitting time in every preseason practice and scrimmage.

After a game against Stanford on Sept. 11, Bradley said Syracuse’s goalie competition was still open.
Spencer has started 14 of the Orange’s 15 games this season, including five of six while Camlin was on the roster. Camlin’s sole start came on Sept. 4 in a 5-1 victory over Hofstra in Hempstead, New York.

After Camlin left the Orange program, Bradley picked up former SU club team goalie Lydia Fowler to fill her hole in the roster. Fowler has not yet been made available to media.

“There was no room for compromise or acknowledgment of the experience and maturity I had to offer when I questioned some aspects of their ethos,” Camlin said. “It was this experience that I had been led to believe was a key reason for me being invited to join the team. Despite attempts to reconcile and accommodate these differences my position became untenable.”